DAIRY MEETING. 9^ 



for the farmer is to milk, and then hitch up and drive to the 

 skimming station or creamery. When he arrives at the cream- 

 ery there is usually a line of teams ahead of him and he must 

 wait. Perhaps he will wait for his skim-milk, and there will 

 be the skim-milk and the buttermilk to load, and by the time he 

 gets back home it is the middle of the forenoon. At least one- 

 fourth of the day is lost for the man and perhaps for the team. 

 There is a heavy cost. Another factor in that connection which 

 I think is a very serious one is that too often when the farmer 

 comes back he is bringing tuberculosis to spread among his herd. 

 The dairy people have given us a warning that we ought to take 

 in the matter of using the cans from the skimming station. I 

 think this is one of the greatest menaces in the problem of dairy- 

 ing. Now the average returns from the creamery are small,, 

 and if we take out these items of expense, the purchased feed, 

 the home grown feed, the interest, the depreciation, I fancy that 

 in the average dairy there will be very small returns for the 

 labor. Yet against this factor of the lack of profit in the 

 average dairy, one fact comes up which is hard to reconcile with 

 it, and that is this : The dairy regions of the country are almost 

 invariably the prosperous regions. Go where you will through- 

 out this country and you will find among the dairy regions a 

 prosperity that is scarcely equalled by any other line of farming 

 except perhaps fruit growing. How shall we reconcile those 

 two things? Perhaps one of the reasons for the prosperity of 

 the dairyman is that he is willing to work hard and long for 

 small wages, but it seems to me that the underlying reason is the 

 fact that the dairy business more than any other maintains and 

 improve'^ the fertility of the soil. In many lines of farming 

 there is a constant depreciation, a constant loss. You will find 

 it in your own State. The potato growers are coming against 

 difficult problems in the handling of their soil, difficulties from 

 the diseases and insect enemies which prey upon their crops. 

 But the dairyman is pursuing a line of farming which enables 

 him to improve constantly the fertility of his soil. And yet^- 

 how does he do it? How does he handle that product which is- 

 so important as the basis for success? Well, in the first place 

 there is very likely to be a long lane leading from the dairy 

 barn out to the pasture, or perhaps out to the watering place 

 where the cows are watered. I realize that I am speaking to 



